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Annesley began making abstractsculptures in weldedsteel in the early 1960s. These were often painted in bright colours as in the case of this work. The painted surfaces of Annesley's sculptures were a reaction against the craggy appearance of much sculpture of the 1950s. According to Annesley, using colour opened up 'a whole new way of articulating and realising feeling in sculpture'. Using more than one colour was also a way of emphasising the different parts of the work. In 'Swing Low' the fluid blue and green line is contrasted with the static yellow forms which enclose it. In this way, colour is used to give the sculpture a sense of movement, energy and direction.

The surface of these sculptures is explicitly non-tactile. The skin of paint which makes it more or less anonymous was also a reaction both to the craggy surfaces of the bronzes of the fifties and to the iron industrial flavour of Annesley’s first welded pieces. It was something comparable to the movement away from Abstract Expressionism going on in painting. Nevertheless the material was not unimportant. Annesley uses its taut qualities, as in ‘Jump’. In ‘X-Act’ and ‘Swing Low’ metal registers as both fluid and rigid at the same time, as it also does in the later rippling circular pieces (e.g. T01347, T01348). Annesley explained steel was ‘neutral— just stuft’ while at the same time ‘the most flexible, durable material you could use’. The material itself did not influence the form a sculpture took, though of course he knew what sort of pieces would be available.

The sculpture is one of an edition of three. Another copy is in the collection of the Calouste Gulbcnkian Foundation.